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After lunch the next day, Dean called me over to his office at the sheriff’s station. Business was very slow, and I’d already seen all of the appointments set for the day. After checking in with Bekah, I headed over to the station, which was located across the street from Civic Center Park. On my way into the station, I paused for a moment to look out over the park. The fairy lights on the big blue spruce sparkled in the sunlight, and children played on the fields and playground, happy to be free of school for the next three months. I remembered how much I enjoyed Summer Break and wished for a moment that I could drop what I was doing and go spend some time on the swings. They’d always been my favorite part of any playground, and it had been years since I’d been on a swing set. Maybe I could convince Jen to join me one afternoon. She loved it just as much as I had when we were little.
I turned away with a wistful sigh and headed inside the sheriff’s station. Dean was waiting for me just inside the front doors, dressed once more in his khaki-colored uniform shirt and pants, a heavy leather gun belt riding low on his trim hips. I never thought I was the sort of woman who went head over heels for a man in uniform—not like Jennifer, anyway—but I did have to admit that Dean wore the sheriff’s duds well. Possibly even better than his flannels and tight jeans.
“Let’s go on back to my office,” Dean said. He headed toward a metal detector and X-ray machine. “Drop your bag here.” He nodded at the X-ray’s conveyor belt.
I raised my brows in surprise. It must be policy that every visitor went through the same security protocol before going deeper into the building. Dean would, no doubt, have gotten in trouble if he’d let me sneak around it. I dropped my purse in a plastic box and added my car keys and a handful of loose change into another, smaller plastic box. Then I headed through the metal detector. It beeped. Dean smirked at me.
“Got a bomb vest strapped beneath your jacket?” he quipped.
“Yep. Should I take it off?”
“Your jacket or the bomb vest?” he asked. I gave him a level look, and he chuckled. “Yes, take off your jacket. Send it through the X-ray.”
I did as I was told and went through the metal detector again. It beeped a second time. I gave Dean an exasperated look. “Can’t we just skip this? I’m not carrying a gun. Or a bomb. Or even a knife.”
Dean took a handheld wand from one of his deputies. “You can’t skip it. How would it look if I let my killer smuggle the weapon in that she used to kill me? Arms out,” he instructed. I rolled my eyes but complied with his instructions. Dean ran the wand over my outstretched arms and down my torso. The wand started beeping as he ran it over the front of my body. He raised a brow. “Underwire?”
I could feel flames creeping into my cheeks. I dropped my eyes and nodded, wanting to fall into a large hole. That seemed to be a running theme in my relationship with Dean. While I didn’t necessarily mind Dean knowing what sort of underthings I wore, I did not want him to find out in such a cold and clinical way. I had something much more romantic in mind. Like a soft blanket in front of a cheery fire, while snow fell gently outside. Or maybe on a soft blanket in the middle of a forest clearing at night, while stars wheeled above our heads and a soft breeze caressed our bodies. An obnoxious, beeping machine did not figure into any of my romantic Dean-involved fantasies.
“Figured. Come on through,” he said, handing the wand back to the deputy. He picked up my bag and the small container of my keys and change and held them out to me. Then he grabbed my jacket and carried it with him back to his office. I followed in his tracks, trying to ignore my lingering embarrassment. And the feelings that my fantasies had engendered.
Dean’s office was small but pristine. His desk was empty except for a silver-framed photo of his mother and father, three brothers, and him wearing fishing gear and standing knee-deep in a stream. Dean and his brothers were carbon copies of their father, though Dean’s features were softened a bit by his mom’s full lips and thick, coal-black lashes. On the wall behind Dean’s desk were a few framed articles from the Chronicle about various crimes Dean had solved during his years as with the police department in Denver, then as a deputy and finally as sheriff for Clear Creek County. His diploma from Colorado State hung among the articles, and there were even some awards from various civic clubs around the state. Across from the desk, on a small set of shelves, were football and baseball trophies from Clear Creek High School, as well as more family photos taken in pursuit of conquering black diamond ski slopes, as well as from the backs of trail horses, and one of the entire family clustered around the body of a seven-point buck.
“Have a seat,” Dean said, patting the back of a comfortable-looking leather chair that sat across the desk from his own seat. Before he sat down behind the desk, he laid my coat across the back of a loveseat beneath the windows. Once settled, he removed a single folder from a drawer and smiled at me.
I sat down with my purse at my feet. “Okay,” I said, sitting back in the chair and crossing my legs. “Why am I here?”
“Last night, Deputies McGill and Nichols and I executed a search warrant for Gordon Oakes’s house. We found files identical to the ones Viki kept of the victims of her blackmail scheme. Names, addresses, photos, and payment amounts. We also found bank statements for an account opened nine months ago and held jointly by Gordon and Viki. The balance was more than $275,000. Weekly deposits of about $5,000 were made over the same nine months.”
“Gordon and Viki started seeing each other almost a year ago. He moved here then, right? Where from?”
Dean withdrew another slim folder from the same desk drawer. He opened it and slid a photocopy of a newspaper article across to me. I noted that the article was from the Chronicle, dated twenty years prior. The headline read: LOCAL MAN CONVICTED IN RAPE AND MURDER OF TOURIST
“I remember this,” I said. “It happened while I was in Seattle, working on my master’s degree. But what does this have to do with our cases?”
The corner of Dean’s mouth was tugged up in a subtle smile. “Our cases, huh?” I nodded but couldn’t quite keep an answering smile from surfacing or subvert the wink I dropped either. “Read the first column,” he said, reaching across the desk to tap the article. “All your questions will shortly be answered.”
I lowered my eyes and skimmed the first column of the article. A familiar name leapt off the page at me. “Barry Shubitz was the defendant’s lawyer?” I glanced up at Dean with wide eyes.
“Yes. The defendant’s name, by the way, was George Jardins. Remember Jen mentioning him at the SummerFest?” I nodded. “After his conviction, Jardins fired Barry and hired a new lawyer to handle his appeal. He told the judge that Barry had mishandled his case, but before the court could hear the appeal, Jardins killed himself in his cell.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, lining up the pieces in what I hoped was the correct shape. “Is this what Gordon and Viki were blackmailing Barry for?”
“I think so. Gordon is Jardins’s son. He and his mother moved to Denver after Jardins was convicted. She and Gordon began using her maiden name, probably to distance themselves from Jardins’s crime and conviction.”
“So Gordon knows why his father fired Barry?”
“I would assume so, yes. I can’t say for certain until we find him and question him. But after talking with the state bar association to find out why Barry switched from criminal law to estate law, I discovered that Jardins had filed a grievance against Barry. Jardins alleged that Barry was stealing money from Jardins’s escrow account.” When I frowned in confusion, Dean explained. “See, whenever you hire a defense lawyer, your payments go into an escrow account. The lawyer can only use those funds to hire expert witnesses, pay for independent testing of evidence, stuff like that. Barry was stealing from Jardins’s accounts, and because of that, he couldn’t hire some witness or get some evidence tested that might have exonerated Jardins.”
“Oh, my goodness.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Barry was such a nice guy! How could he have done something like this?”
“He was in the middle of a nasty divorce. He needed the money to hire his own lawyer.” Dean shrugged. “It happens. People make stupid mistakes and then end up paying for them later.”
“But what a payment!” I fell silent, thinking about Barry and his awful death. Shaking off those thoughts, I asked, “How long ago did Gordon come back to Saxon Lake?”
“Two years ago. Gordon’s mother had died, and I guess he never got over what happened to his father. He must have come back to settle the score.”
“Gordon came back to hurt Barry? That’s awful.” I was quiet for a moment, then said, “For everyone involved. Barry, Gordon, Gordon’s parents...” I shook my head sadly. “The other blackmail schemes—the one with Paul Holmes and Tiffany Bright, Ed McMurray, and the others—he must have seen how easy it would be to take all that money from Barry—”
“Especially after Viki got him involved. I suspect the blackmail against Paul, Tiffany, and Ed were all Viki’s doing. She must have shown Gordon how easy and lucrative it was, and he must have figured it was the perfect way to get back at Barry.”
“Right. And his job, too, would make it easy.”
“His job?” Dean asked with a frown.
“Yeah. He’s a cable installer. People don’t pay much attention to them or plumbers or anyone like that. Gordon would have had plenty of opportunities to snoop through people’s homes, even their trash. It’s not like we lock our doors around here.”
“That’s a good point. So, in light of all this, Judge Bartlett issued an arrest warrant for Gordon Oakes this morning. There is an APB out for him in all jurisdictions in a seven-state area, and we’ve issued BOLOs to all train and bus terminals as well as all airports in Colorado. We’ll find him.”
“Wow,” I said. “Thanks for letting me help out. I’ve learned a lot, and I’m happy that you think I’ve helped you, too.” I stood to get into my jacket.
Dean stood, too, and said, “I’ll walk you out to your car.” He headed toward his office door, and I followed, enjoying the view for a long moment as we walked through the station.
Once we were out at my Ghia, Dean laid his hand on my forearm before I could climb in behind the wheel. “Wait a second before you go,” he said. “There’s a question I’ve wanted to ask since Saturday. You know, before all of this began.”
“Oh? Well, what is it?”
“There’s the big town dance on Saturday. And I was wondering... I mean, if you don’t already have a date, that is... What I mean is, would you like to go with me?”
I stared in dumbfounded amazement at him. Then I started laughing and shook my head.
“Well, you don’t have to be so rude about it,” Dean said through clenched teeth. “We had a nice dinner date the other night at the barbecue, and we work well together, and I thought—”
“Oh, no! No, that’s not why I’m laughing at all. I promise.” Dean gave me a narrow-eyed glare. I smiled at his expression. “I promise. The truth is, I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to ask you since Saturday. Remember when Jen said I had a question I wanted to ask you?”
A slow smile bloomed across Dean’s face. “You were going to ask me then?”
“I lost my nerve. I also lost my nerve during dinner at the bonfire, during lunch at the Red Dragon, a few times when we were on the phone... I lost my nerve a lot.”
“So,” he said with a grin, “what do you say? Gonna chicken out again?”
“Chicken out? Really?” He smirked. “I should say no. But... Yes. I’d love to go with you.”
“Awesome. I guess there’s a theme? The 1940s? We’re supposed to dress up.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a dress all picked out. I was going to go stag,” I explained when Dean gave me a questioning look. “Do you have a suit?”
“No. Mark and Jen are going. I’ll ask him where he got his suit.” He took a step back and nodded to my car. “I’ll come pick you up at your house at eight on Saturday, okay?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Bye, Bryony.”
I waved and slid behind the wheel. I didn’t even remember how I got back to the office. Everything after Dean saying goodbye was lost in a soft, fluffy, pink cloud of extreme happiness. I somehow navigated the crowded streets, parked my car, and walked into my shop without conscious thought. The next thing I knew I was sitting at my desk, transcribing a conversation I’d had that morning with a new patient.
Finally, after almost thirty years of friendship, pining for him, watching him date other girls, and nursing him through break-ups with all those girls, Dean Jensen had asked me out on a date. I was so giddy I couldn’t contain myself. I called Jennifer and my mom and broke the good news. Their reactions were almost identical.
“Well, it’s about time!”